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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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^ * The blood is the common material with which the capillary arteries , which as you will see hereafter are the masons and architects of the system , build up their different structures in the different parts of the body . The blood is the common stimulus by which the most important organs , both of the organic and of the animal life , are stimulated to the due performance of their functions . Wi
^ thout a supply of blood , the heart , which is capable of untiring action as long as this fluid is in contact with its internal surface , is no longer capable of the slightest motion . Without a supply of blood the brain is no longer capable of intellectual operations , or even of the slightest degree of perception . In less than one minute after this fluid ceases to flow in proper quantity , and of proper quality , through the vessels of the brain , sensation is abolished and fainting comes on .
* You are well acquainted with the appearance of the blood as it flows from a wounded blood vessel . You have seen that as it issues from such a vessel it is of a red colour ; and you know that it is of a thick , tenacious , and gluey consistence . If you observe it merely when flowing in a full stream from a vein , or if you examine a mass of it collected in a cup immediately after it is removed from a blood vessel , you would suppose that it is a true and proper fluid , and that it is perfectly homogeneous in its nature . Yet it is not a fluid ,
and instead of being homogeneous in its nature , it is the most complicated substance in the whole body . Its constituent parts are numerous ; each part has distinct and peculiar properties ; and the whole are united together in a mode resembling nothing else with which we are acquainted . The more you know of the constitution and properties of this curious substance , the more deeply you will feel that your admiration of the structure of the animal frame ought not to be confined to the mechanism of its solid parts ; that the whole is wonderful and admirable from the common material out
of which the whole is constructed , to its most delicate and elaborate instrument / The physical properties of the blood , its consistence , colour , specific gravity , and temperature , come first under review . Its consistence is very quickly altered after it is removed from its vessel into a firm solid , and a thin fluid . No means yet known can prevent this change from taking place .
Redness of colour is not essential to blood . In large tribes of animals , as insects , it is not red , and there is no animal in which it is red in all parts of the body . Blood is circulating in abundance through the human eye , through even the transparent cornea , but it is not red blood . In the internal vessels of reptiles it is yellowish . In the organic organs of
the higher animals it is always red , deep red in birds , deepest of ail in quadrupeds , and in some tribes deeper than in others . Its colour varies in the different races of men , and in individuals according to age or disease . The pallidness , duskiness , or bright and transparent colour of the cheek are alone sufficient to announce to the physician
the presence of some of the most formidable diseases . There are two kinds of blood in the human bodv essentially differing in their proper-
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Dr . Southwood Smith on the Animal Economy * 121
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No . 74 . K
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 121, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/53/
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